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Driving while talking on a hands-free phone can be as distracting as talking on hand-held mobile: study


June 8, 2016   by Canadian Underwriter


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Driving while talking on a hands-free phone can be as distracting as talking on a hand-held mobile, according to a study from researchers at the University of Sussex in the United Kingdom.

Mobile phone on car with copy spaceThe study, titled Imagery-inducing distraction leads to cognitive tunnelling and deteriorated driving performance and published in the Transportation Research journal, found that drivers having conversations which sparked their visual imagination detected fewer road hazards than those who didn’t. The Brighton, U.K.-based University of Sussex added in a release on Wednesday that the drivers also focused on a smaller area of the road ahead of them and failed to see hazards, even when they looked directly at them.

“This shows the risks of even hands-free phone conversations,” the release said.

The researchers found that conversations may use more of the brain’s visual processing resources than previously understood. Having a conversation which requires the driver to use their visual imagination creates competition for the brain’s processing capacity, which results in drivers missing road hazards that they might otherwise have spotted, the release said.

“A popular misconception is that using a mobile phone while driving is safe as long as the driver uses a hands-free phone. Our research shows this is not the case,” said Dr. Graham Hole, a senior lecturer in psychology at the University of Sussex and one of the study’s authors. “Hands-free can be equally distracting because conversations cause the driver to visually imagine what they’re talking about. This visual imagery competes for processing resources with what the driver sees in front of them on the road.”

Dr. Hole added that the findings have implications for real-life mobile phone conversations. “Our study adds to a mounting body of research showing that both hand-held and hands-free phones are dangerously distracting for drivers,” he said. “The only ‘safe’ phone in a car is one that’s switched off.”

The study, which tracked eye movements, also found that drivers who were distracted suffered from ‘visual tunnelling.’ They tended to focus their eyes on a small central region directly ahead of them, leading them to miss hazards in their peripheral vision. Undistracted participants’ eye movements ranged over a much wider area.

“Conversations are more visual than we might expect, leading drivers to ignore parts of the outside world in favour of their inner ‘visual world’ – with concerning implications for road safety,” Dr. Hole said.

The Sussex psychologists ran two experiments in which participants performed a video-based hazard-detection task. In the first experiment, participants were either undistracted, or distracted by listening to sentences and deciding whether they were true or false. For half of these distracted participants, the sentences encouraged the use of visual imagery (e.g. ‘A five pound note is the same size as a ten pound note’) whereas for the other half, the sentences did not (e.g. ‘Leap years have 366 days.’) All of the distracted participants were slower to respond to hazards, detected fewer hazards and made more ‘looked but failed to see’ errors, meaning their eyes focused on a hazard but they didn’t actually see it. These impairments were worse for the participants who were distracted by imagery-inducing statements, the release noted.

Anything which causes drivers to imagine something visually, including passengers, can interfere with driving performance because the two tasks compete for similar processing resources. “However, chatty passengers tend to pose less of a risk than mobile phone conversations,” Dr. Hole said. “They will usually moderate the conversation when road hazards arise. Someone on the other end of a phone is oblivious to the other demands on the driver and so keeps talking. And talking in person involves non-verbal cues which ease the flow of conversation. Phone conversations are more taxing because they lack these cues.”

In the second experiment, the researchers compared undistracted participants to ones who were distracted by a different visual imagery task. This involved mentally moving around an imaginary grid in response to verbal instructions. Distracted participants were more likely to miss hazards in their peripheral vision due to the ‘visual tunneling,’ the release concluded.


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12 Comments » for Driving while talking on a hands-free phone can be as distracting as talking on hand-held mobile: study
  1. Doug says:

    This is ridiculous. It would follow, therefore, that talking to a passenger in the vehicle would also be a ‘tunnel vision’ distraction. Guess we’ll just have to ban ‘talking’ while in the vehicle. Try enforcing that one. For the amount they charge for these so called ‘studies’, you’d think that they would come up with something believable, at least.

  2. John says:

    So I see that conversation is the distractor here, what should one do, travel alone and turn off the radio?

  3. Joe Jones says:

    “And talking in person involves non-verbal cues which ease the flow of conversation”
    … So a driver LOOKING SIDEWAYS at their passenger they are talking to or BACKWARDS to the person they are talking to in the back seat for all these “non-verbal cues” is much safer than a driver with their eyes actually looking at the road? Really? Seriously??
    … Some serious flaws in this study seem to be self-evident….

  4. Daniel says:

    I recall other studies that indicated

    (1) business related phone calls are more distracting than non business calls

    (2) talking to passengers is as distracting as talking on a hands free phone

    Time to start discouraging driving with a passenger. We need driver only reserved lanes.

  5. Azaeal says:

    The same argument could also apply to a passenger talking to the driver or having kids in a car talking so I guess next step is a partition between the driver and passengers. I think it is because human minds are getting lazy and less focued. Maybe we all need the same course the cops get so they can use their handheld devices.

  6. Andrew says:

    Of course you’re distracted if you’re concentrating on something else. So don’t do that. Driving has priority; don’t try and negotiate a merger or fight a divorce from the road. I admit I can’t do both; I lose track of what I’m saying through intersections.

  7. bob says:

    Stupid, stupid study, a waste of time and money. This means no singing to the music playing in your vehicle. No talking to a passenger in your vehicle, what next.

  8. Mike Moreau says:

    “The researchers found that conversations may use more of the brain’s visual processing resources than previously understood. Having a conversation which requires the driver to use their visual imagination creates competition for the brain’s processing capacity, which results in drivers missing road hazards that they might otherwise have spotted, the release said.”

    Well if this is truly the case then it would apply to all conversations, not just ones on a phone. So then, talking to a passenger, asking your child how school went, asking you dog if he is a good boy is ultimately going to end in a horrific life-taking crash?

    Its funny that in the 50’s you could drive down the road, lighting your cigarette, fiddling with the radio that constantly drifted off the signal, talk to you passengers and never have an accident. Now today, a driver is incapable of driving and holding a conversation? PLEASE!!!

    Lets cut the baloney and admit that these roads having far more traffic than they were ever designed for. The roads and highways are so congested and traffic so dense that you cant even sneeze without causing a accident.

    Too many cars + too little road = lots of bad accidents.

  9. Larry Fowler says:

    Ha! I now have a new vehicle with a dash screen. I am distracted many times more than my cell phone trying to work all the gadgets on this entertainment centre. Have nearly crashed several times taking my eyes off the road. They should be banned. Hands free cell phone does not come close to this entertainment centre distraction.

  10. Tim Tann says:

    What about talking to a passenger? What about all the buttons on my steering wheel and dash? What about the idiotic drivers we have to watch for all the time that’s a distraction… I thinking this is getting to be a cash cow for the RCMP or our government… I think its time to draw a line in the sand. Will we be fined for thinking about a family member or a sick friend?

  11. Martin says:

    This distracted driving thing is getting out of hand. I do agree that people should not be fiddling with their phones as they drive – which is like reading a paper as you drive (which I saw today!!!) But are hands free devices really worse than having a conversation with your passenger? Or thinking about that distressing conversation with your partner? Let’s not criminalize everything that ever causes harm.

  12. Goody says:

    This is now getting too much !
    Based on this article – Everything will be distracting , eg : Changing radio station or cd’s , reaching for a tissue.sneezing, coughing , so on and so forth ….
    You might as well Stop Driving & Start Walking .

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